CNN
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China’s ruling Communist Party will reveal its top leadership for the next five years today, bringing to a climax months of closed-door preparations that are expected to see leader Xi Jinping extend his iron grip on power with a norm-breaking third term surrounded by allies.
The new members of the party’s Politburo Standing Committee, China’s most powerful decision-making body, will make their first appearance in Beijing Sunday, walking out in order of rank to publicly reveal for the first time the faces that will sit atop of the party and drive the world’s second-largest economy over the coming half decade.
This year’s event, which comes one day after the close of the five-yearly Party Congress, is one of the most consequential and closely watched in decades.
A preview into the sweeping reshuffle expected to be unveiled Sunday was on show at the end of the Congress, when two key heavyweights not in Xi’s inner circle – including China’s current number two Li Keqiang – were not included in the party’s new Central Committee, meaning they have left China’s top ruling body and will go into full retirement.
This will likely leave Xi – who is expected to break with recent precedent to take a third term in power – presiding over a Standing Committee where rivals have largely been eliminated, formally changing what for decades had been an entrenched power-sharing structure in the party’s top echelon.
Saturday’s events were briefly interrupted by an unexpected scene when Xi’s immediate predecessor Hu Jintao, who is 79 and has been seen in frail health in recent years, was escorted out of the Great Hall of the People from his place seated next to Xi, for reasons that were not immediately clear, though Hu appeared initially reluctant to leave.
While the close of the Party Congress saw Xi’s ideologies and priorities further embraced and elevated by the party, Sunday will be the final flourish for the leader who is widely seen to have cemented power by eliminating rivals and dampening the lingering influence of party elders in recent years.
“The power transition in the 20th Party Congress offered (Xi) an opportunity to completely reshuffle the (Standing Committee) and to place his close associates to most – if not all – positions. If he succeeds in doing so, he will certainly have full control of the power structure,” Yang Zhang, an assistant professor at American University’s School of International Service.
The line-up of the Standing Committee, in recent years a seven-member body made up of ethnically Han Chinese men, will indicate much about the state of Xi’s influence within the black box of elite party politics, and whether he plans to hold onto power for a fourth term.
The new standing committee, and the larger 25-member Politburo of which it is a part, are formally appointed by a rubber-stamp vote of the roughly 200 members of the new Communist Party’s Central Committee, which was formed at the close of the Party Congress – though the real decisions over who fills the party’s top spots are made in the months before, in closed-door discussions between top party leaders.
From Mao to Xi: A history of China’s leadership
One indicator of Xi’s power was signaled Saturday, when it was clear that two current members of the body who are not within his inner circle, China’s number two leader and premier Li and Wang Yang, both 67, would retire, one year before reaching the standard retirement age. Xi, at 69, is one year above that informal limit.
Several proteges or allies of Xi have been flagged by watchers of elite Chinese politics as likely candidates to fill those empty seats and two others opened by the of-age retirements of Li Zhanshu and Han Zheng.
Those include Chongqing party chief Chen Min’er, 62, one of Xi’s longtime close allies and proteges, Ding Xuexiang, 60, who runs the General Office of the Communist Party, a position similar to being Xi’s chief of staff, and Shanghai party chief Li Qiang, 63.
A top body filled with loyalists, would “weaken further” top-level power sharing, according to Chen Gang, senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s East Asian Institute.
“(In this case) Xi is no longer first-among-equals, as his predecessors were. Yet he still needs to share power with other standing committee members, even if they were loyal to him before joining the committee,” he said.
Eyes will also be on Hu Chunhua, 59, a vice premier outside Xi’s orbit who had previously been touted as a potential successor to Xi. Hu was denied a promotion onto the Standing Committee in 2017, stalling his rise.
Experts will be watching whether there will be a young face – and potential successor – in the standing committee, which could signal whether or not Xi aims for a fourth term.
The new power dynamics also herald a triumph for Xi’s agenda in how to drive China forward in the years to come.
“The headline story is obvious – Xi Jinping and his group are consolidating their power, the question is to what end,” said David Goodman, director of the China Studies Center at the University of Sydney.
He pointed to likely discussions among leaders in recent years over how to advance economic development, including the extent to which China has a state and private sector and the debate about immediate economic needs versus “common prosperity” – a vision to narrow China’s wealth gap.
“What I take out of this conference is the (emphasis on) common prosperity, which is now enshrined in the constitution of the party,” Goodman said.
In addition to Li and Wang, who are associated with the steadily diminishing Communist Youth League faction of elite politics once presided over by former leader Hu, others who have been known for a more market-friendly stance – like finance officials Liu He, Yi Gang and Guo Shuqing – are also not longer part of the Central Committee. The survival of Central Committee member Wang Yi, 69, also indicates support for China’s aggressive foreign policy stance.
But even as Xi steps into an expected third term – and potentially one surrounded by allies – he will not necessarily have a smooth path ahead, given domestic economic challenges and strained international relations, issues Xi alluded to in an opening address to the Party Congress last Sunday.
A Standing Committee stacked with loyalists “does not necessarily mean that Xi will become an omnipotent supreme leader and can do anything. His unlimited power will be constrained by his limited capacity and decreasing energy as he turns older,” said American University’s Zhang.
Meanwhile, Xi’s own associates will themselves divide into different blocs and compete for power, while Xi’s full control also means his team will be fully responsible for any policy mistake and could provoke stronger international pushback from the US-led Western countries, he said.
“All of these scenarios will make his third – and possibly fourth – term not as easy as expected,” he said.
